Cruz would inspect the bacon before bringing it home

Paul Ryan, the Republicans’ presumptive vice-presidential nominee, isn’t the first tea party conservative having to explain how he can rail against Washington and still be eager to accept any federal monies that might benefit his district, but Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz, the GOP Senate nominee, insists that’s a false choice.

“I don’t think it’s actually an either/or choice,” he said this morning in Houston, speaking to a rally at Harris County Republican Party headquarters. “Having served five-and-a-half years as the solicitor general of Texas, I have spent many years relentlessly fighting for the state of Texas, and if elected in November I hope to continue doing so every single day in Washington. That being said, I don’t think it is in the interest of Texans to continue to grow our out-of-control government spending and our crushing debt. You know, if 435 members of Congress and all hundred members of the U.S. Senate view their job as feeding at the trough and bringing as many dollars home to every district in this country, that’s how we bankrupt our country. . . .”

The U.S. Senate candidate — “the brightest rock star on the national scene,” party chairman Steve Munisteri enthused — will, if elected, be replacing a senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, who took pride in bringing federal dollars home to Texas.

Cruz was joined at the rally by U.S. Senator John Cornyn, Congressman Ted Poe, state Rep. Sarah Davis, congressional candidate Randy Weber, Harris County district attorney candidate Mike Anderson and other GOP luminaries.

Munisteri reminded the audience, jammed into the second-floor party office on Richmond, that Davis was facing a real challenge from Ann Johnson in District 134 and that Weber, a state representative from Alvin, “is in a tough race with Nick Lampson, who’s trying to make a comeback, like one of those bad pennies.”

Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wasn’t asked about U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin, the tea party congressman from Missouri who observed over the weekend that victims of rape rarely get pregnant because their bodies somehow prevent it. Texas’ senior senator, however, felt compelled to issue a statement implying that the GOP candidate should end his campaign.

“Congressman Akin’s statements were wrong, offensive and indefensible,” Cornyn said. “I recognize that this is a difficult time for him, but over the next 24 hours, Congressman Akin should carefully consider what is best for him, his family, the Republican Party and the values that he cares about and has fought for throughout his career in public service.”

Akin, in a close race with Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill, was the recipient of campaign contributions from Democratic groups that assumed he would be the easiest of the GOP candidates to beat because of his extreme views on a variety of issues. Although Akin won Missouri’s GOP primary, Cornyn and his fellow Republicans probably would have been happy to see him go, even before his impolitic remarks about abortion and rape.